


Wait for no man

by Sweety_Mutant



Series: What if? The Great Escape [5]
Category: The Great Escape (1963)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Movie Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-03-02 22:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2828222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweety_Mutant/pseuds/Sweety_Mutant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What If Von Luger had obeyed the Gestapo Officer at the beginning?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wait for no man

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: They're not mine ^^ just making fun and putting them back where they belong when I'm finished.
> 
>  
> 
> Not a commission this time, just a little "what if" I had in mind for some times :D I hope you like it anyway and as always, R&R please ^^
> 
> *contain spoilers
> 
> * Please forgive me for any mistakes I'm not a native English speaker.
> 
> * A line/word in italics means it is in German. I hesitated to leave them in German and then translate them at the end of the fic, but I thought it would be more comprehensible this way.
> 
> * I've made Von Luger's first name Friedrich because it was one of the first names of the "Real Life" Kommandant ^^ And besides, I like it that way :p

 

* * *

Friedrich passed his hand through his hair in an attempt to calm himself. Those Gestapo Officers had finally departed, leaving him with his nerves in a wreck and a shattered prisoner.

" _What are you going to do sir?"_  asked Posen.

" _Your heard what they said. Though it shames me much, I can't risk all of your lives for one man."_

The prisoner's eyes flickered briefly as if he had listened and understood. Von Luger switched to English and addressed him:

"You will be put in the cooler for an indefinite amount of time. You can keep your personal effects but no contact with the exterior is allowed. I'm sorry."

The prisoner didn't react. He let himself be lead in the cooler, without even a glance to the camp. From his office, the Kommandant sighed, drinking whatever stood for strong coffee in this war time. He had a bad feeling about all of this. A very bad feeling.

Hours ticked by, paperwork and boredom with it. Looking at the camp from his window, it seemed to him that there was a pattern in the ways that some of the prisoners walked, talked to each other. He spotted the SBO walking around the compound, flanked by two blonds. He thought that maybe he should explain to Ramsey what had happened with the Gestapo. He asked his adjutant to go and get him the SBO as he drank the remaining of his coffee to give him courage.

When Ramsey entered, he wasn't alone, a blond man staying a step behind him. He apologized by saying he wasn't feeling well and preferred to have one of his men with him. Said man politely saluted Friedrich, and introduced himself as Flight Lieutenant MacDonald.

The discussion went rather smoothly, even if Friedrich felt somehow uneasy beneath the thoughtful gaze of Mac. The SBO stayed polite, saying he understood and accepting silently the German's apologies, but as they departed, the nasty feeling in Friedrich's stomach came back.

 

* * *

 

"It feels good to know he's alive," said Eric during the meeting the X organization held that night.

"Yes. We can send him messages via the cooler, if we bribe a guard or want to spend a few days in the dark," went on Mac, his quick smile lighting most of the men's grim expressions.

During the rest of the meeting, Ramsey explained that, during Roger's stay in confinement, Mac was to take his place as Big X, and the Scot looked nervous when he exposed his ideas and the scraps of plans he and Roger had made before their last escape.

All went well from here onward. Every member of the organization took his usual job, and they worked on a long tunnel, planning to take out around fifty men. Small individual escape attempts were also overseen.

A young guard named Werner soon fell in the web of the scrounger, and during his shifts in the cooler, he delivered messages from Mac to Roger carefully concealed in biscuits or cigarettes.

 

Spring gave way to summer, and the tunnel went on without major problems, one or two big cave-ins being the only real troubles encountered. Until the fourth of July. The few Americans of the camp had thrown a surprise party, and all the POWs had been so involved that they had not seen the ferrets search the hut where the tunnel entrance was hidden. Its discovery had been a cruel blow to their moral, especially to the most fragile of them, who desperately threw himself on the wire only to be gunned down in front of his mortified friends by the goon in the tower.

That night, Ramsey could not find sleep. His eyelids were haunted by Ives's dead body on the wire, and his pillow could not silence the sobs coming from the room next to his. He wanted to go see Mac. To tell him that everything was going to be alright, even if he had just lost a friend. Even if his best friend was locked just out of his reach. They could dig another tunnel. He wanted to tell him that he could succeed as the new Big X. To tell him he was not alone in this…

Leaning on his cane, Ramsey knocked on Mac's door. He heard sounds coming from inside, then the door opened slightly.

"It's me Mac. Can I enter, please?"

"Sir…" Ramsey entered, sat down next to Mac on the bottom bed, trying not to pay attention to the reddened eyes nor the two empty cigarettes packs lying on the ground amidst the ashes.

"I'm sorry to have awoken you Sir."

Ramsey tentatively took the trembling hands in his own: "It's okay, I couldn't sleep either… Today has been exhausting."

Mac stared at the ground, and said:

"Sir… I…. I don't want to do it anymore."

Ramsey did not know what to answer. If Roger had been here, he would have comforted his friend. He would have found a way…

"It's my fault Ives's dead… I'm so alone… I've never been a leader. It's too much for me. We're never going to succeed."

" None of this is your fault. You've done very well. You are not Roger, but you've been perfect. Nobody could have seen it coming! You…" Ramsey did not finish his phrase, a gunshot tearing the fabric of the night. The two officers looked at each other, a silent question between them. They decided to go out of the room and met the equally interrogative stare of the others inhabitants of the hut. Whispers of "What happened?" "Did they shoot one of us again?" "Someone trying to get out?" filled the corridor. Mac by his side, Ramsey walked to the hut door, calling a guard, but none came.

Nobody slept that night, anxious of which name would be spoken in the morning, killed, or escaped?

As the first light of the day crept beneath the shutter, Werner entered the hut, looking upset.

"Group Captain? We need you at the Kommandantur! Come now!" Ramsey exchanged a look with Mac and followed the German out.

"Is it about the shot we heard last night?"

"Yes... But I can't tell you anything! Just follow me!" Ramsey thought that Werner's voice sounded even more distressed than ever, and has they entered the Kommandantur, every member of the staff looked stuck by grief. Ramsey was not sure he wanted to know what had happened anymore. As he entered he was met by Captain Posen, who was fidgeting behind Von Luger's desk. The two officers greeted each other and, once Werner had left, the Adjutant cleared his throat, and finally said:

"I think you know why I asked you to come here. You all heard the gunshot last night."

"Yes we did. Is one of my men involved?" answered Ramsey, holding his breath.

"No. It doesn't have to do with your men. It's… Herr Von Luger. He shot himself last night."

At first, Ramsey could not believe it. As he looked into the eyes of the German standing before him, he knew it was the truth. He finally said: "I'm sorry...I don't if I can ask but... do you know why?"

"The pressure was too much. He left several notes, for some of his colleagues, family… He left one for you too. We didn't open it, but we will have to keep it, when the police will come to investigate." He then gave to the SBO a plain envelope with his name written on it.

The next minutes were filled with a thick silence, Ramsey reading the letter. The words moved him, but he knew that right now was not the moment to show it. As he gave back the letter, he asked:

"You… will take his position as head of this camp?"

Posen swallowed heavily. He answered:

"No. That's the… other problem I had to tell you about. Last night, when he… took his life, we had to call the Police. The Gestapo and the High Command soon knew. They considered that… this, combined with his past make him a possible suspect for helping you, or being a part of some resistance. He wasn't a Nazi. He never was. He has been filed as an anglophile, and was here so they could keep an eye on him. And now they have a reason to remove the camp from the Luftwaffe's authority. In a week, we'll all be gone and replaced by SS and Gestapo officers. I'm sorry, but you have to expect things to change. They do not have the same respect towards you than us."

"I understand. I'm also sorry about your fate."

"We'll cope, it's war after all. I trust you will keep your men correctly informed of what I told you after Roll Call."

"Of course."

They saluted each other then Ramsey left, not knowing if he should feel relieved that none of his men had died. He did a little speech to his men, keeping it formal and short, then returned to his hut. Mac was waiting for him in his room, and Ramsey told him everything he could not say in front of the others. How it hurt, when it should not have. He also told him the contents of the note. That Von Luger wrote he could not continue to do atrocities even as direct orders, and that keeping a man in a cell with no contact was inhuman enough, but to do it for no reason… and to have the responsibility of another senseless death... That he was sorry. About the war, and what would happen to them. But that he had not enough strength to go on.

Mac listened wistfully. This death had been a harsh blow, not only because Von Luger had been a respected, if not appreciated, jailer, and never their enemy; but because the Gestapo taking over the camp would mean less and less chance of a successful escape. His weariness had been replaced by a cold fury. Two men had died in less than twenty four hours. For nothing. The least he could do was honor his friends, fallen and absent, and plan the perfect escape. Something so big those damned Nazis would never know where to begin.

With a dangerous half smile, Mac said to Ramsey: "I have some people to see. There will be a meeting tonight, 8 pm, usual place."

 

* * *

 

 

The next months were hard. The Gestapo was nowhere as nice as the Luftwaffe, and food was even scarcer than before. Ramsey watched Mac and Eric work thrice as hard as before, planning everything to the centimeter. As the days passed, they slept less, became more cold-blooded, old, if he could say so… Some of the men whispered that they did not recognize them. But all of them could only agree that their dedication had paid. Every identity paper, item of clothing and cover story was perfect. The day before the fateful night of the escape, for the first time, Ramsey heard Mac use a past tense to talk about Roger. They also talked about the probability of never coming back. Yet, Ramsey felt in the depths of his heart that he had already lost them.

The night when they all went out, Ramsey did not dare to hope. He knew that the look on Mac and Eric faces when they said their farewells would stay burned forever in his mind, so different they had been from the buoyant young men he had met a few years prior.

The wrath of the Germans the morning after the escape had been unparalleled. Just like planned. Deep inside, the old officer knew they wouldn't come back. They had made a last stand, "to an absent friend". A last, perfect plan. And they had known the price of it. Yet, a few days, later, when he heard the news of the recapture, of the execution, he could not control his tears. Out of two hundred men out, only half of them would be walking back into the camp. The names of the dead still rang in his mind, making his head spin. He prayed every day for the fate of those whose names were neither on the list of the dead nor the list of those to be brought back.

The morning when the survivors came in, Ramsey had the hardest time facing them, trying to keep a composed exterior, while he bled inside. He was called just after by the head of the camp, who informed him of some new measures that would soon be taken –to make their life even harsher- a cynical part of his brain supplied him. He was also told that they were getting Roger out of the cooler, now that the "real" head of the escapes had been apprehended. As he returned to his room, ordering to bring him Roger as soon as he was out, he did not know what to feel. An intense grief had taken its toll on him, and seeing his old friend again would only pour salt in the wounds.

 

* * *

 

 

Roger had stopped counting the days. He didn't think about escaping anymore. Not since he had heard those fateful shots, so many during the same day… Not since the uniforms of the guards had changed from Luftwaffe to SS. His will had left him, those walls reducing him to a shadow. Nobody talked to him anymore. No more hidden messages, but he was not sure he would know how to answer… He just hoped that everybody was alright.

The noise of his cell opening made him open his eyes. Two SS entered, followed by another one who seemed to be of higher rank. With a smirk, the later said:

"Get up Squadron Leader. You are going out."

Roger tried to speak while struggling to stand up, but the Gestapo Officer did not give him a chance to talk and went on:

"We were wrong Bartlett. Who could have believed it was your quiet Scot friend who was behind everything? Anyway, you can go out of the cooler now. But don't try anything, unless you want to join your little friends…"

Horrible thoughts and questions filled up his mind. Scot friend… He felt his heart clench at the thought of what could have happened. Without giving him time to think, the SS threw him his bag and dragged him out of the cooler.

As he felt the sunlight on is skin for the first time in months, shielding his eyes, he noticed how the camp felt empty. … Roger saw a few prisoners stop their activities to look at him, but none of them had faces he knew. One of them stopped him and said "The SBO is waiting for you. He is in hut 101." He walked as fast as his weakened legs could allow him, until he found the Ramsey's room. He knocked on the door and entered.

When Ramsey heard the knock on his door, he knew who it was, and steadied himself. Yet, nothing could have prepared him for the man before him. He seemed to have aged ten years, lost half of his weight, and the empty blue eyes that stared at him had nothing in common with the once intense gaze of his friend. Ramsey could not help himself, and took his friends in his arms, whispering:

"Roger…"

Roger returned the embrace, and, his voice hoarse, said:

"Please sir… Tell me everything."

**Author's Note:**

> The end
> 
> Whoa! This one was tough to write! I had this idea in my head for quite some time, but I had it mixed up with another plot and didn't realize it until beta reading myself, so It took much longer than expecting, since I had to rewrite parts of it ^^
> 
> Anyway, I hope you liked it and don't forget to review ( I always answer) ;)


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